This week’s Crowdfunding Spotlight is a memorable game that takes an incredibly morbid topic, namely death, and turns it into something adorable and exciting. Coffin Dodgers; by popular studio Milky Tea, is a kart-style racing game that contains the usual thrills of dashing to the finish line while evading traps and launching projectiles at opponents, but there is an interesting added twist; geriatrics. That is right, all the riders are old enough to remember Eisenhower and they are going as fast as their heavily modified mobility scooters will allow them to. The hint or morbidity comes from the fact that, in addition to racing amongst themselves, they are also trying to outrun Death who also happens to enjoy a good go-kart race on the weekends.

Luckily, the depressing presence of Death is overcome by the amazing joy and vibrance of the surrounding world. The game is based on one giant map of the small retirement community in which these elderly characters reside, and the town has great detail and contrasts well with the dark comedic tone of the game. Just like the town the character models are enjoyable and are filled with emotions that betray their supposed old age. The developers say the art style borrows heavily from the Pixar movie Up and this is immediately apparent as Coffin Dodgers has essentially a perfectly identical vibe.

The game is also animated beautifully and it is apparent the amount of work that went into all the animations, and the map seems to fly by with no sense of lag or deterioration. All the weapons seem appropriate, with projectiles being things such and bowling balls and medicine, and Death has his own arsenal of tricks like tombstone walls. As with most games nowadays Coffin Dodgers features a progressive means to level up a characters kart with better power, shields, and even, apparently, giant racks of missiles.

The only downer of the entire project is the lack of funding so far. This game looks great, and is sure to become a popular title, but at the moment it’s KickStarter campaign has only has raised a touch over Â£2,000 with a goal of Â£65,000. There are still eight days to go, and I implore anyone reading this page to check out Coffin Dodgers and consider bringing this incredibly well designed game to the masses, because after all, who doesn’t enjoy cheating Death?